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Daylight Savings Time (2020)

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Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#41

Post by riemannzeta »

seanalltogether wrote: post #26

The older I've gotten, the more I'm convinced that people don't care what the clock on the wall says, what they care about is minimizing the effects of sunrise/sunset. No one wants to be awake or get their kids awake before sunrise, and many jobs can't continue after sunset. Lifestyles will adjust forwards or backwards to match the hours in between

Exactly. Whenever I have this conversation with folks, I point out that the purpose of clocks is to keep human behavior in synch, and all that daylight saving time does is make that harder in an age in which people don't rely upon the position of the sun in the sky anymore to determine when it's time to do things.

Yes, we are diurnal animals. Yes, sunlight matters to how we sleep. But why do we care whether the hands on the clock are pointing up when the sun is highest overhead? Everybody could do what they needed to do sleep wise regardless of where they were pointing.

The simplest solution is not only to do away with DST, but to adopt a single universal time. This would make keeping in synch easy. No longer would time zone conversions be necessary. No longer would we have to adjust our sleep schedules twice a year or worry about whether whomever we had to collaborate with in a different part of the world was doing the same.

But outside a handful of industries and technical fields, we seem unable to stomach the thought that the clock might read 17:00 as the sun rises. and 7:00 as it sets. That's just too weird. And why should Tavarua have to tolerate that when Greenwich gets to live with the historical norms?

Politics. Politics are the end reason for why we fight over what the clock says.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#42

Post by Uehreka »

mac01021 wrote: post #22
Uehreka wrote: post #7

I care more about sunset than sunrise, so if people are proposing to get rid of DST instead of making permanent DST I will fight them tooth and nail. I get that it's subjective, but my subjective view is that having sunlight after work is more important, and I stand by that.

What if we kept standard time year round but you were allowed to change your work schedule from month to month as the seasons changed?

That feels like the “what if instead of legalizing gay marriage we just got rid of marriage” take in this debate. In the sense that “people being able to work when they want to” is a utopian thing that isn’t going to happen, in part because there is real value in people being in the workplace (or even just logged in) at the same time. And even of I did change my working hours, stores and restaurants and coffee shops operating on the normal schedule would open/close at the “wrong times” for me. Plus when I have kids someday I won’t be able to change when they go to school.

Much as we’d all like to be special snowflakes who march to the beat of our own drum, the fact of the matter is that society moves as a unit, and our happiness is often dictated by where it is moving to.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#43

Post by et-al »

justinlink wrote: post #16

We absolutely need Daylight Savings Time, you can argue about Standard Time not being necessary. Without DST, in my hometown, it will get dark at 6pm every day from Sept 23rd to March 4th. That's depressing for the 9-5ers with commutes. I wouldn't see the sun past 7pm outside of May 1st -> August 16th. If we're getting rid of DST, we need to switch the working day from 9-5 to 8-4 or 7-3.

> Without DST, in my hometown, it will get dark at 6pm every day from Sept 23rd to March 4th.

To clarify, is your hometown in the southern hemisphere? DST generally occurs in the summer months.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#44

Post by avgcorrection »

justinlink wrote: post #16

We absolutely need Daylight Savings Time, you can argue about Standard Time not being necessary. Without DST, in my hometown, it will get dark at 6pm every day from Sept 23rd to March 4th. That's depressing for the 9-5ers with commutes. I wouldn't see the sun past 7pm outside of May 1st -> August 16th. If we're getting rid of DST, we need to switch the working day from 9-5 to 8-4 or 7-3.

Pff. People live farther north than you yet they don’t die.

If scientists say that getting rid of DST will lower diabetes/cardiovascular risks/etc. then I’m all for it.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#45

Post by MisterBastahrd »

ginko wrote: post #23
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's most people, I think. We're fine with getting rid of the time shift, but if we're going to do that, it makes more sense that the back half of the day have sunlight for longer. People need to do things and kids need to play. Most folks aren't going to work to plow fields anymore.

But is the best way to keep a systemic off by one error for ever? Is this really the only way to allow people to get out of work earlier?

Why does it have to be a "one off error?" When's the last time you used a sundial to figure out the time down to a quarter hour or didn't have a device with you that gave you the current time?

I think most people would agree on two things: (1) that having time after work to do things during daylight hours is ideal, and (2) that the work hours they already have are fine.

A shift in working hours might be fine for childless adults, but it doesn't work for most people. People have to be present to get their kids ready for school or daycare, and you're never going to get teacher's unions to agree that they should be in the doors of a school by 6am to receive students.

So... this fall, no shift. For now or ever. Boom, done. Yes, the days get a bit shorter, but you're still talking about a 6:45pm sunset in Texas, which gives people about 2 hours of active time in the evenings, which is preferable to the 45 minutes previously.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#46

Post by tzs »

Uehreka wrote: post #7

I care more about sunset than sunrise, so if people are proposing to get rid of DST instead of making permanent DST I will fight them tooth and nail. I get that it's subjective, but my subjective view is that having sunlight after work is more important, and I stand by that.

The problem in northern latitudes with permanent DST is that morning darkness is generally more harmful than evening darkness.

First, the weather tends to be worse in the morning. It tends to be colder. Fog is more likely. Ice on the sidewalks and roads is more likely.

Second, people's schedules are generally more synced in the mornings. People tend to go to work or school over a narrower morning time span than the evening time span in which people come home.

Morning darkness then means you are putting the time when you have the most people traveling at the time you have the worst travel conditions of the day.

In the northern parts of the US, permanent DST wouldn't even give most people much usable after-work sunlight. Here in the vicinity of Seattle, for example, on the last day of DST this year sunset is 5:43 PM. If you are a 9 to 5 worker your commute likely uses up most or all of your evening sunlight.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#47

Post by mac01021 »

justinlink wrote: post #25
mac01021 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if we kept standard time year round but you were allowed to change your work schedule from month to month as the seasons changed?

What about schools? What about retail business hours? What time do restaurants open and close? Does each of those change every month? It's much easier to change our clocks twice a year.

I would absolutely prefer school and business hours to change every month rather than have this 1-hour clock shift twice per year.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#48

Post by justinlink »

et-al wrote: post #43
justinlink wrote: post #16

We absolutely need Daylight Savings Time, you can argue about Standard Time not being necessary. Without DST, in my hometown, it will get dark at 6pm every day from Sept 23rd to March 4th. That's depressing for the 9-5ers with commutes. I wouldn't see the sun past 7pm outside of May 1st -> August 16th. If we're getting rid of DST, we need to switch the working day from 9-5 to 8-4 or 7-3.

> Without DST, in my hometown, it will get dark at 6pm every day from Sept 23rd to March 4th. To clarify, is your hometown in the southern hemisphere? DST generally occurs in the summer months.

No. I'm in the northern. I'm giving time ranges as examples of when it will get dark without DST. Yes, it only benefits me March -> Nov.

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#49

Post by [deleted] »

avgcorrection wrote: post #44
justinlink wrote: post #16

We absolutely need Daylight Savings Time, you can argue about Standard Time not being necessary. Without DST, in my hometown, it will get dark at 6pm every day from Sept 23rd to March 4th. That's depressing for the 9-5ers with commutes. I wouldn't see the sun past 7pm outside of May 1st -> August 16th. If we're getting rid of DST, we need to switch the working day from 9-5 to 8-4 or 7-3.

Pff. People live farther north than you yet they don’t die. If scientists say that getting rid of DST will lower diabetes/cardiovascular risks/etc. then I’m all for it.

[deleted]

Re: Daylight Savings Time (2020)

#50

Post by leoedin »

Gunax wrote: post #28

I have always been of the opinion that it's the schedule, not the clock! You need to change the schedule if you don't like the hours. Changing the clock does nothing! If the point is that business are closing too late so we lose too much daylight during winter, then we need to tell businesses to move their operating hours earlier. My gut says that we decided school should operate 8-3 and work 9-5 for a reason. If we…

Just look at Spain. For historical reasons they're in the European time zone even though they're really aligned with the UK. Culturally they do everything "late" - start work, finish work, eat dinner. That's just the schedule shifting to meet the sun.
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